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Examine the back of almost any product these days and you’ll probably find a mark or sticker on it letting you know that it was made in China. Similar to this, in American craft brewing, is the fact that most of our beer comes from California or Colorado. “Places starting with the letter ‘C'” conspiracies aside, this is certainly the norm.

All of this recent talk about the German Reinheitsgebot beer purity law got me wanting to go back and study it some more. It turns out that there were two very interesting reasons contributing to its creation and they both had to do with rye.

I received a lot of compliments about the Berliner weisse article a couple of weeks back so I thought I’d regale y’all with another little bit of beer adventure I encountered while visiting Germany oh so many summers ago. This one, however, is an example of beer done wrong.

The image of the wild boar appears again and again throughout European history both as a symbol for entire armies and on many a noble family’s coat of arms. Despite being known as consummate omnivore scavengers, boars are common in heraldry due to their courage and their fervor while under attack.

How does one tinker with perfection? I suppose the argument may be made that nothing is ever truly perfect, but find a beverage that suits your sensibilities, meets and then exceeds its requirements for style while satisfying both palate and thirst… well, you’re about as close to perfection as allowable by law.